Word: heaven
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Dates: during 1870-1879
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...ship plunged on; no heaven-sent guide...
...enthusiastic Freshman dates his letters from Yale, "New Heaven...
...infinitely more effective might be the words of the great mass of preachers would they but be a little less ready to tread the way their fathers trod. This last remark brings us to what we more especially desire to speak of and that is the pictures of heaven with which many sermons are crammed full. Now, in all Christian charity, granting that the preacher does not crib so freely from Revelation and the Psalms for the purpose of saving himself mental labor, what does the preacher gain by such a picture? For who indeed ever sits down...
...have been compelled to listen to such a description of heaven as no educated preacher can or does believe in; such a description as, taken even in its most figurative meaning, could inspire no enthusiasm for its attainment in any but the most animal natures. Perpetual rest, unending song, and Oriental luxury have been the spiritual food the preacher has offered under the appellation of heaven; and this, too often, to those. who despise the effeminacy of such luxury, and whose work, not rest, is their real happiness...
...clergy of Cambridge and Boston, have the privilege of forming our own conceptions of heaven and bliss. Do not disgust all the educated with these caricatures of a future life. Or, if the pulpit's elevation does convince its occupant that he can see a little farther into the realms of the unknowable, may he seek to picture it in the scholarly way that does not confound the gratification of the sensual appetites with the stimulation of the noblest powers of our higher nature...